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Melinda Gates, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation makes remarks at the launch of a Global Partnership on Maternal and Child Health on March 9, 2011 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. US Secretery of State Hillary Clinton introduced a new partnership between the US Agency for International Development, the Government of Norway, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and The World Bank that will seek innovative solutions to reduce maternal and child mortality in developing countries. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

As 2012 comes to an end, it seems apropos to make some predictions for 2013 on the record. Trust me, if any of these predictions are demonstrably fulfilled I’ll remind you of my prescience this time next year. Otherwise, we may never speak of these predictions again.

People will continue to confuse the use of the word “social” as used in the disparate senses of social media and social entrepreneurship, which are entirely different things, even though social entrepreneurs depending heavily on social media.

In order to better connect with both employees and customers, corporations of all sizes will increasingly seek to identify themselves with a single, popular cause, blurring the line of demarcation between social enterprises and traditional businesses.

Do-gooders will scoff at the corporate cynicism that drives expanded corporate social responsibility programs as mere marketing ploys; these corporate efforts will generate billions of dollars of support for social causes.

Crowdfunding will become an integral, ongoing part of managing nonprofits and growing for-profit social enterprises. Crowdfunding for social ventures and nonprofits will exceed $1 billion, representing about 20% of all crowdfunding.

Critics of social entrepreneurship will continue to deride for-profit models for their lack of genuine altruism and will dismiss nonprofit models as unsustainable.

Undeterred, social entrepreneurs will drive access to clean water, education, electricity and the internet for tens of millions of people living in poverty in 2013, continuing a process of both lifting people out of poverty and creating new customers for an infinite number of consumer goods.

The world will not run out of impoverished people who need a helping hand, human trafficking and slavery will continue, human rights of all varieties will be violated, animals will be mistreated, and global warming will not be corrected in 2013. Social entrepreneurs will see opportunities, if only the opportunity to help, in each of these areas and countless others as well.